LOW: A Rockstar Romance

by Lux,Vivian

She licked her lips.

  "Hey!" Scarlett flung herself breathlessly between us. "Sorry! Sorry!" she said, drunk and apologetic. "I'm shit at introductions. Twi-er-Low, this is my friend Zoe."

  Zoe snapped back from me like Scarlett had caught her with her pants down. "Hi there!" she chirped.

  Her voice was false and wrong sounding. That's how I knew that moment I wanted to capture was lost forever.

  "We've met," I told Scarlett, as politely as I could.

  Zoe swayed in place. "So... I think we're going to go dance now," she said, sounding dazed.

  "Okay, cool," I said, popping up from my stool without a second thought.

  "You're coming?" she asked.

  "Sure I am."

  She seemed amused. "Really?"

  I gestured to the banners. "It's my fucking party, after all."

  She bit her lip, but with the way her shoulders hitched, I could tell she was trying not to laugh. "I guess it is," she hedged.

  Eager hope flooded through me. "And I want to dance with you, Zoe."

  "You know how to dance?"

  I pretended to take offense. "I'm a drummer, may I remind you. I have a fantastic sense of rhythm. I won't embarrass you. I promise." I held out my hand.

  She slipped her hand into mine. I looked down to where we were connected, her slim fingers entwined with mine. Fuck the moment we shared before, this was the one I wanted to hold on to forever. And I was starting to think of a way that I could.

  "Okay," she said, bouncing a little with excitement. "Dance with me, Low."

  Chapter 7

  Zoe

  I used to pride myself in being the life of the party. Put me in the middle of an awkward situation, and I nearly always knew just what to do. In fact, Grip used to send me out to do interviews with the reclusive musicians, the ones who hid and eschewed the press. Because I was so good at drawing people out of their shells.

  But in the year I'd spent sitting at home, waiting for the phone to ring with the job offer that never came, I'd formed a shell of my own. The longer I stayed inside, away from people and music and the life I had loved, the more frightened I became. Rejection after rejection covered me in a thick coat of depression. The longer I stayed unemployed, the more that coat calcified around me, suffocating my joy and squeezing out my self-confidence.

  Inside the shell, I was hard and brittle, fearful and sarcastic. I was hesitant in a way I didn't recognize; self-conscious in a way I couldn't shake.

  Fuck this shell and the brittle, hollow thing that lived inside. I didn't like who I'd become and I didn't want to be that person anymore.

  I wanted to get better, and I knew that would take a while, but until then there was only one thing to do.

  Pretend.

  When a bad-boy rockstar drummer whose face was plastered all around me leaped off of his barstool to follow me to the dance floor, my first self-conscious thought was to beg off and shy away. He had a whole club full of girls that wanted a piece of him, why would he want to dance with the semi-fat girl who reeked of desperation?

  That was the shell talking, though. I knew it. And I was here to break the shell wide open.

  So I smiled at him and took his hand and invited him to dance with me. And as soon as I did, a little bit of the shell chipped away.

  He led me to a spot a ways off from the main floor, dark and more secluded, though by no means private. "This good?" he asked, raising a dark eyebrow.

  I took a deep breath. Tonight, I realized, the best thing to do was to just ignore every one of my instincts. If I did the exact opposite of my gut reaction, then I had a prayer of actually having a really good time.

  And hell did I need a good time.

  "This is perfect," I told him, ignoring the way my hand trembled at my side.

  Low nodded and then reached out his hand. "You okay if I touch you?"

  I took another deep breath. The opposite of my gut reaction. "Yeah," I breathed.

  Then I reached my hands up wrapped them around his neck and pulled him down to me.

  He let me pull him down, down and down - he was at least a foot taller than me - until his lips just brushed mine. His mouth met mine matter-of-factly. The kiss was not hesitant in any way, but casual instead. It lasted just long enough to give me a taste of what was to come if I chose to let the kiss go deeper. I knew he was letting me know that he was willing to go just as far as I was willing to take it.

  If I wanted to, I could part my lips and let him sweep his tongue against mine. If I wanted to, I could let him cover my mouth with his, and hear the fierce growl that emanated from somewhere deep inside of him. If I wanted to, I could let his hands roam my body as he devoured my mouth at his leisure. If I wanted to, I could taste the bourbon on his lips, slide my tongue against his and feel his body press down, molding to mine as we moved together.

  I could do all of those things, if only I wasn't frozen in place, paralyzed by how badly I wanted to do them.

  "Hey," he murmured, breaking away and looking into my eyes. He must have seen the panic in them because he gave me a soft, encouraging smile. "I'm not gonna do anything you don't wanna do. So you just show me, Zoe. I'm a pretty quick study. I pick things up right away." He grinned and tucked my hair behind my ear, and his voice dropped lower, barely audible over the thud of the bassline. "Barely ever have to rehearse more than once."

  My heart was banging around in my chest like a frightened rabbit. "Was that rehearsal?" I panted.

  "I like to think it was."

  "And what's the main event?"

  He didn't even have to answer. His smile...and my blush, said all that needed to be said.

  "I think." I stopped. Swallowed. The opposite of my gut reaction. "I think you should put your hand on my waist."

  "Show me."

  I bit my lip and took a deep breath, then slid my hand around his waist. The heat of his skin rose through the thin fabric of his gray t-shirt. He watched me carefully as I ran my hand around to rest at the small of his back. "Like this," I told him, pressing the heel of my hand into the slight curve at the base of his spine.

  He nodded once. I did not wince when his hand rounded my waist. I ignored the desire to suck my soft tummy in and stand up straighter. Instead, I watched his eyes widen ever so slightly when his hand found the curve of my spine. He pressed in gently, bringing me in tighter against his taut abdomen. "Now what?" he asked.

  "You should touch my face." I reached up, tracing a line down that angled jaw. When my finger brushed close to the corner of his mouth, it curved upward.

  Touch for touch, he imitated me, mirroring my movements so intuitively that after a while I could no longer tell if I truly was the one who initiated them. Fingers tracing across lips, palms smoothing down spines, we moved as a unit, letting the music lead us. My hands started to know him intimately. He was tall, and narrowly built, with a wire-y strength to him that had been whittled down over the years on the road. There was not an ounce of anything extra on him, and he carried himself tightly, like a coiled spring. I knew he was holding back, I knew he was resisting the desire that was flashing in his veins. I knew this because I was doing the same thing.

  Never had I been so in tune with another person and I had known him for less than an hour.

  He growled something as his lips brushed past my ear. Words seemed so insignificant, but I forced my lips to makes the shape of a reply. "What did you say?"

  "I'm going to remember this moment," he said quietly. It sounded less like a statement and more like a promise.

  "Me too," I said thickly. I reached up and threaded my fingers behind his neck. "This is exactly...."

  At that moment, my best friend, the girl who had been so kind as to invite me here in the first place, the friend who always looked out for me and had my back and yet seemed to have the shittiest sense of timing on the planet, appeared at my elbow. "There you are! I thought you were dancing right next to me all this time and then suddenly I looked up and realized I was danc
ing like an idiot all by myself and...oh." She looked at my hands around Low's neck and the realization seemed to dawn in slow motion. "Oh shit...."

  "Hey Scar," I breathed.

  She pinched the bridge of her nose. "That's, like, the second time I've done this with you two, haven't I?"

  I reluctantly disentangled myself from Low. "Not your fault, babe," I reassured her. "It's been so long since you last saw me with a guy that you probably forgot what it looked like."

  Low was grinning his easy grin. "I like your friend, Scar. Thanks for bringing her."

  I looked down at my shoes but I knew there was no way to hide my blush.

  Scarlett laughed. "She's a good one Twi-er-Low. Be good."

  "Aw, you're no fun," he whined.

  My friend bopped him on the nose like he was a bad puppy and he just smiled that smile of his like this was all the most fun he'd ever had. When you work as a writer, your days are spent dealing with people who have the most inflated sense of self-importance imaginable. I'd never met someone so willing to be the butt of the joke. I'd never seen someone so eager to make someone else smile.

  "So, um, I'm really sorry that I'm like third- wheeling it here, but Zoe? You put me in charge of getting you home in time."

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Right, shit." I looked up at Low's confused face. "I have to watch my little brother tomorrow and he gets up before dawn even thinks of cracking."

  "That's cool," he laughed lightly. "Hey, why don't I take a picture of you two before you go."

  Scarlett brightened. "Okay!" she said, eagerly grabbing her phone out of her tiny purse and handing it to Low. Then she smashed her cheek up against mine. Low grinned and aimed the viewfinder. "One two... three!"

  He snapped the picture, then deftly moved Scar's camera to his pocket and pulled his out. "Now my turn," he announced, stepping in between us and extending his arm, snapping off a selfie before I had a chance to close my mouth. He looked at his phone. "I need a better one, Zoe. Smile!"

  I froze. "Just me, alone?"

  He nodded. He looked so happy and eager and I knew there should be something creepy about his asking, but there was nothing remotely creepy about Low. His eyes were just too kind. "Just want to remember tonight," he added.

  Me too, I thought. "Okay, sure." I flipped my hair over my shoulder and gave him my best three-quarter profile.

  "Smile for the camera, baby, you're a model!" he teased, snapping off a few shots. He ducked and weaved around me, affecting this really wide lunge.

  "What are you doing?" I laughed.

  "I have no idea, honestly," he confessed with a grin. "This is what they did at the photo-shoot for that ad up there, so I figured that's how it's done. Told you, I'm a quick study." He took another picture. "Dance for me, now." I laughed and wiggled in place. "That's right, move. Make love to the camera, it loves you, baby!"

  I twirled around with my arms over my head while Scarlett clapped and cheered, while Low snapped away "Oh, work it! Yes! Gorgeous!"

  I landed breathlessly and turned on Low. "You sound ridiculous!"

  "I don't sound like a photographer?" He frowned in mock seriousness. "I just learned all this shit...clearly."

  I whipped out my phone. "I'm taking pictures of you now too," I chided him. "Blackmail material."

  He raised an eyebrow. "Blackmail, hmm? Sounds like you'll need me to take my clothes off then."

  "Aaaand, I'll just move over here for a minute." Scarlett took three steps backward and then turned and faced the other direction.

  Not that I would have noticed her anyway. Not with Low's words still hanging in the air. "I might," I told him. The thought of him with his clothes off was quite appealing. If he looked as good as he felt....

  "If we're going with blackmail, we need to up the stakes here." He leaned in. "Get something juicy. Want me to show you how to be a model?" He took my hand and pressed it to his chest. "Put your hand here." He took my other hand, wrapped it around his neck, forcing me closer. "And the other. Now turn your head to me and look at me like I'm an especially juicy burger."

  "I'm a vegetarian," I gasped. I was so close I could see the swirl of stubble on his jaw.

  "A juicy piece of broccoli, then," he corrected. "Lower your eyelids, like you're really fucking sleepy." He demonstrated, shooting me bedroom eyes that could kill any red-blooded woman, and then grinning. "Fucking perfect, wanna see how gorgeous you are?" He extended his long arm and snapped the picture before I had a chance to look away. "Now, here's the money shot," he said, turning his face toward mine.

  The edge of his top lip brushed upward across my jaw and caught the corner of my mouth. I closed my eyes in surprise.

  Just as the flash went off.

  He pulled back and looked down. We were still entwined, my hands where he'd placed them. I slid back. Reluctantly.

  "Now I just need to know something," he said.

  "What's that?" I asked, a little too eagerly. It was frightening how ready I was to tell him anything he wanted to know.

  He gave a low chuckle. "What's your number, Zoe?"

  "Oh." I rattled it off mindlessly and he tapped several keys on his phone. Then looked up at me, expectantly.

  "Um, I kind of don't have service down here," I explained, blushing.

  "Too bad," he said. "Call me when you get it, okay?"

  "Get what?" I asked. But he waved over his shoulder and Scarlett was at my side, leading me away.

  We emerged, blinking, into the warm, brightly lit night and as soon as we stepped outside, I felt my phone buzz in my bra.

  I pulled it out with a smile, expecting to see him calling me to be sure I gave him the right number.

  It was the picture. His lips, my closed eyes. The almost kiss. It was searing, erotic, the hottest picture I had ever seen. There was no way it could be me in it, but there was the birthmark on my jaw, there was the freckle on my earlobe.

  And his heavy-lidded eyes, staring at me like I was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

  Chapter 8

  Low

  As soon as Zoe left the party, it was like all the color drained out of the place. I leaned against the bar, talked with Maddie and Rane a bit, but my mind kept wandering.

  My phone was burning a fucking hole in my pocket. All I wanted to do was grab it and scroll through the pictures I had just taken. The ones of her laughing and dancing, the close-ups I'd taken of her lips and her shoulder.

  That kiss.

  I felt a hand on my arm, jostling me. I looked up, startled, to see that Maddie was patting me sympathetically. "It doesn't get any easier," Maddie sighed. "But you start to like...detach."

  "Just pretend it's someone else, dude," Rane advised.

  I blinked at them, and then realized I had been staring at one of the banners with my face on it. "You look completely freaked out," Maddie said. "Try not to think about it so much. Pretend it's like, another person."

  "That'll be pretty easy," I said, staring up at my own image as it stared back down at me. "Because, it sure as fuck doesn't feel like me."

  None of this did. The party was wall-to-wall beautiful, plastic people.

  Except for Zoe.

  Zoe was real as hell. I could still feel her shape, like the memory of holding her was burned into my skin.

  "I need a fucking drink," I muttered.

  "I'll buy," Maddie said eagerly, still thinking my skittish behavior was the result of all this model bullshit.

  But I'd had enough. I stood up. "Do I have to do anything else?" I asked, wiping my hands on my jeans. My phone felt like it weighed a metric ton.

  "If they want you, they'll come get you," Rane said.

  "Who else would want me?"

  "Every chick in this place?" He spread his hands helplessly. "I dunno, dude. You've kind of struck a chord."

  I grinned. "I'm a drummer. I don't do chords."

  Rane pinched the bridge of his nose. "Oh Jesus, don't ever let them tell you you're cool, Twi-e
r-Low. They're lying."

  I grinned and lifted both middle fingers. "Have a good night guys, I'm out. Enjoy my party."

  I ignored the confused looks my sudden defection caused. Usually, I was right there to the end, closing down the bar, getting dragged out of the party. But I had more important things to think about right now.

  She said she needed to get up early. I didn't want to call her too late. I just needed to get out of here and to a place where I could get a clear signal, maybe be alone....

  The chime on my text notification cut through my thoughts, and for a moment I thought that Zoe had read my mind. I looked at my screen, heart pounding like a middle-schooler when he first talks to his crush.

  Pepper: Was it fun???

  A girl all right. But pretty much the exact opposite of Zoe.

  Me: Hey sis.

  Pepper: Did you strut through the club like it was your personal catwalk? Did the girls throw their panties at you?

  I smiled at the screen. My sister barely spoke aloud, but she texted like a teenaged girl on amphetamines. And she always managed to get her point across perfectly.

  In this case, she was hardcore making fun of me.

  I leaned against the bricks. People were passing all around me. I heard a few of them whispering about how I looked like the guy on the banner. Who was I? And why was I out here instead of inside at my own party?

  When they concluded that I was just some regular dude, I sighed with relief.

  Me: Exactly that, yeah. You should have come and witnessed it.

  Pepper: Fuck off.

  I winced.

  Me: You would have been fine.

  Pepper: Don't push me, Woe.

  I sniffed at the nickname. Back when we were babies and trying to learn each other's name, I called her Pepper instead of Piper. The name stuck and she grew to prefer it.

  I always needled her that at least I gave her a decent nickname. What the fuck did she call me?

  Woe.

  Fucking Woe.

  I'm a happy-go-lucky, easygoing guy and my sister named me after grief-stricken sadness.

  A name that really suited her way more than me.

  I sighed.